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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207473">find y(our) happiness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/judaciously/pseuds/judaciously'>judaciously</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Top of the Round (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Illustrated, No Romance, platonic intimacy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:14:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/judaciously/pseuds/judaciously</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After all their time together, three adventurers work out exactly what their relationship is, and how they all fit together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Talice &amp; Se'ku &amp; Chaz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>find y(our) happiness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Illustrated by @atelidaee on twitter!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Where it started wasn’t clear. There would probably never be a moment of clarity to look back on, to bring up and laugh fondly about. It had been gradual, one moment bleeding into the next until they had arrived at where they were now, unequivocally entwined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the outside edges of some town, her face hidden away in her mask, Talice sweeps her hand across Chaz’s face, where his hair had draped forward, drifting into his eyes. He smiles at her, says “Hi,” in that way he does, and her hand lingers on his cheek until he snaps at her fingers, and she has to scold him, half-laughing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After the same day has faded into dusk, Se’ku, full of half a loaf of blueberry bread, trudges over to Chaz. Their druid is sitting on the ground, a book in his hand, and Se’ku climbs into his lap to sit chest to chest with him. He settles up against him, blustering a yawn, and closes his eyes. Chaz barely reacts except to tuck Se’ku’s cloak in around himself, a blanket for them both, and to rest his chin on top of Se’ku’s head to better read his book and the myriad of illustrations within. Talice watches on, a fond smile on her face, and stokes the fire against the chill—Se’ku is cold for a reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somewhere else—days later, in a library—Talice pours over a book in some vain hope that it will help them. Se’ku stands up on a chair, bored of books and words that don’t do anything except frustrate them, and reaches out to her. Without looking, she hooks an arm around him and pulls him up against her side in a loose, long-lived hug. His hand rests on her upper back, and he munches contentedly on a cookie he’d stashed in a pouch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even now they find it hard to explain what they are to others, to the people who don’t understand, to those who don’t want to, who assume there’s shame or something hiding beneath the simple veneer of physical affection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s understandable, when it had taken so long for them to comprehend what they were falling into, when it had taken so long for them to be comfortable with it, with what they carved out for themselves from blood, and sweat, and the aches of roads and dragons and nigh-incomprehensible tests that seem designed for people with a far greater understanding than they will ever have. It had been hard, then, to puzzle out social intricacies and the ever-painful dealings of </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanting</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be loved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The mortifying ordeal of being known had been harder for some of them than others, but  they all had trouble. Talice had had to figure out it was fine, understandable, welcome even to want friendship, love, and care. Chaz had had to learn that just because the more carnal sorts of affection existed didn’t mean they were the end-all-be-all to strive towards, to ask for. Se’ku, in turn, had had to learn that affection, physical or not, was something he could have, and something that he did want. That he’s the touchiest of them all now speaks of the time he’d gone without softness in his monastic life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they’d fallen into this, into a system where, when Talice and Chaz sit shoulder to shoulder somewhere, Se’ku comes over to sprawl across their laps, and he doesn’t even need to ask. A system where Chaz can pull the tie from Se’ku’s ponytail and run his fingers through his hair, teasing out the few tangles that accrued. A system where Talice can lean her head against Chaz’s shoulder, maskless, close her eyes, arm folded over Se’ku’s legs, and feel totally at ease.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Call this what it is: a relationship, intimacy, joy, and the delight of being known, of having your needs met and appreciated and celebrated with every breath and every movement and every quick shoulder-grab and brush of lips across cheek, of every chill night spent puppy-piled together, limbs tossed across each other and no need for more because this is all there is, and this is all that is wanted, and it is given freely and gladly and lovingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are those who will bluster about romance, about what this </span>
  <em>
    <span>obviously is</span>
  </em>
  <span> as if they see any of the real things beyond the grip of fingers when someone happens to glance over, or the close-up slide to whisper in an ear in a way that implies a familiarity. But they don’t see the knocking of heads and when someone’s arm goes numb under the weight of someone else. They slide winks over and hint about what goes on behind closed doors and never know the true thing, of three people who need nothing more than each others’ company and all the clumsiness that goes with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things don’t have to be complicated. Things don’t have to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>deeper</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as if this isn’t deep already. Sometimes “I love you” is all there is, and all there has to be. </span>
  <em>
    <span>We’re friends</span>
  </em>
  <span> is not a consolation prize, and it never has been. It’s the whole reward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In some dark place, after a day of nightmares and danger and half-patched hurts, Chaz drapes one arm around Se’ku and one around Talice and pulls them close up against his chest. The two link their hands together across Chaz’s middle, nestled against him, and Se’ku runs his thumb across the odd joints of Talice’s gift-cursed hand. They say nothing, because there’s nothing to be said. They listen to each other’s breathing, settling their own, because despite the huffs and the hitches, that breath is there, still being drawn despite it all, and sometimes that’s the most anyone can hope for. Sometimes the terror that that breath will stop is the most present thing any of them can think of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chaz loosens his grip, but neither of his two companions move away. They get more comfortable instead, and with a roll of his shoulders Chaz molds the earth around them to make a slope they can lean against. They’ll fall asleep there, cushioned in the earth. In the morning, Talice will shove away Chaz’s face when he yawns morning breath at her, and Se’ku will topple over, unbalanced, and blink up into darkness. He’ll politely ask someone to turn on the lights, and Talice will oblige, and they’ll pull themselves together to keep going. Out in daylight, on the next leg of their journey, Talice and Chaz will bump shoulders casually, and he’ll grin at her beak-covered face and know she’s smiling back. Se’ku will slide between them, silently wanting affection, and he’ll be given it without having to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If you had asked any of them what fulfillment and happiness looked like a year ago, maybe they wouldn’t have said it was this, but that doesn’t mean the here and now is any less wanted. They’re wanted, and that’s what matters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    
  </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>there are no ToTR fics on here yet so my city now</p></blockquote></div></div>
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